Candidate for Franklin City Council Post 1

My name is Alan Slaughenhaupt, and I am running for City Council Post 1 because I believe I can make a positive impact on the future of our city through my education and experience.

I have lived in the City of Franklin for 7+ years, and my family has lived in Heard County for over 20. I love the community of Franklin and want to help it continue to grow and prosper.

With two engineering degrees and a business degree, I have a well-rounded and rigorous education.

However, I also believe that life and work experience are just as important as anything learned in a classroom.

For the past 20 years, I have worked as the Information Technology Director for a neighboring municipality. And, in 2000, I was elected to the Board of Directors of Georgia Public Web, a municipal-owned telecommunication company serving all of Georgia, which I have now served consecutively for 17 years.

Being in this position has also provided me insight of how to manage a successful enterprise.

My experience serving these entities has given me in-depth knowledge and experience into most aspects of appropriately managing a city.

As a Director and part of the city management team, I have also gained a very broad understanding of most issues that cities face and how they are successfully solved. I believe, from my experience, that cities should be run like businesses, in which constituents are viewed as stockholders.

This approach promotes effective and efficient management or resources, helping keep costs under control and preventing property taxes from increasing.

Very good question. Unfortunately our city is too small to have some of the activities that our surrounding communities have; movie theaters, skating rinks, etc. We just don’t have enough children to support them. What we do have is an excellent playground for younger children, school clubs, and organizations such as 4H, which is active all year. One idea that I have for the future is a splash park that would be open during the summer.

There are plenty of children in Franklin that would benefit from a splash park or even movie night outdoors in the park. There are several things that the city/county could do like, Family night with inflatables, food, face painting, dunk booths, and those type things. They do not have to be centered around a holiday. Our citizens of Franklin are pouring their hard earned money into the neighboring cities because we do not offer these types of things. People do not like change but in order to grow and prosper and give our children the things they need change is a must. The Recreation Department host Baseball/Softball Tournaments all the time. We have one of the best facility that we have been to, but once the tournament is over people head to Newnan, Carrollton and LaGrange to eat because we have no chain restaurants other than Hardees and Subway and no type of road signs telling visitors what restaurants we do have. IF anyone ever gets brave enough to open a doughnut/coffee shop here in Franklin I am certain they will be billionaires in NO TIME!! That is more money walking out town.

I agree with you money is pouring out of our town but we have to spend money in our own community as well. I do think when we have events vendors from out of town should be charged more to participate than the vendors that live here. Also when there are events going on the people that live here should be more inclined to buy from the locals but they don’t.
I would like the city to make changes to the vendor policies.
#keepthemoneyhere